The Strange Calls

Have to love Toby Truslove's sympathetic portrayal of Officer Toby Banks, perhaps the only sane person in the eccentric town of Coolum. The series manages to be very funny and truly bizarre, at the same time as evoking real empathy for the hapless Toby.

Barry Crocker and Patrick Brammall don't hold anything back in their deliberately off-putting characterisations of Gregor and Sgt Lloyd, creating great foils for Truslove to work with/against.

The sections that show Toby responding to the miscellany of inane, strange calls are a highlight.

The show reminds me of a grown-up "Round the Twist. It also has shades of series like "Twin Peaks" and "Northern Exposure".

I just love this quirky series. Barry Crocker reminds me of my late neighbor and Toby reminds me of one of my old housemates from college. Just enjoy it.

I read one of the previous reviews and could not disagree more! I loved the lead character, the down-on-his luck, Toby Banks. He is sent to Coolum by his dad, a high-up in the police dept. Toby is disappointed to realize that not only has he been sent to a small town in rural Australia, but no one bothered to pick him up at the bus station and he has been relegated to live in a caravan where a strange old man intrusively inserts himself into his life.

He starts getting strange calls during his night shifts and the old man, Gregor, insists that the strange occurrences need to be taken seriously and becomes his sidekick. They end up facing all sorts of strange and wacky and yet touching goings-on in Coolum. If you like Bryan Fuller comedies (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies) I think you'd like this show. I wish there was more than one season!

I love this type of humor. Outside the USA like the U.K. ,Australia and NZ they seem to be able to catch this humor on screen very well. Once in a while Hollywood USA is able to capture a similar feel like in the tv show Battlecreek. But then they canceled the show.... I wish this was a tv series instead of a mini series so it went longer than 6 episodes. Oh well, I enjoyed it. I only gave it 8 stars because of the occasional vulgar language that's seems to be no big deal in other countries outside the USA, in a show that is otherwise family friendly. Well done.

Not sure where all the great reviews come from. While I'll give you the show is quirky and different that doesn't necessarily relate to good. For me the comedic timing for the most part was way off and the acting as well.

I'm guessing there was a reason why it didn't last more then the number of episodes that it did. I guess there will always be someone that likes this type of production but it sure wasn't our crowd.

I'm guessing that this was someone's first attempt at writing and or producing as it had the feel and look of an amateurish production throughout the series.

As well I am also not sure why IMDb requires so many lines of text for a review. Sometimes less is more in my opinion.